08 show /descriptions

lindsey bonk's objects of desire consists of two installations that engage discourse surrounding the theoretical concerns of fetishism, obsession and desire. "just you" confronts the eroticism of film while forcing a space of voyeurism. "nobody else but you" uses body casts as projection surfaces and emulates the violence of cinema on women's bodies by creating an ephemeral experience.

Michael Luke Bullock's Small Sacrifices consists of a mock system of biometric collection that assigns participants purchasing credit in a simulated convenience store setting. Through interaction, the installation questions the ethics of surreptitious data capture as a means to generate information capital from individual bodies.

Angela N. Carroll's Peaced2GatherHerstories Project facilitates collaborative, performative, and visual expressions rendered by historically silenced communities around the country. Through animation, spoken word, images and data collection, five poets (all woman-of-color) confront issues concerning gender, race, and immigration in popular American culture and its histories.

Lea Cox's Becoming Bird presents a musical composition of bird songs recorded by the artist in nature. Also displayed is a website documenting an audio tour of the UCSC Arboretum guiding participants to explore the garden by listening to bird sounds, then responding with drawings in a fieldbook. Lea Cox MFA Thesis Production Website

mónica enríquez-enríquez presents fragments of migration, a Spanish-English video installation that incorporates audio interviews from five participants involved in the asylum process. Three body-sized screens serve as dislocated frames that show representations of loss, refuge, and institutional violence through interactive engagement with the audience.

Chau-Marie Griffiths presents Experience Near Death (END), an installation that explores a collection of personal stories, free associations, and imagery gathered from individuals who have been physically or emotionally near to someone who has died. END is an homage to those who, through witnessing their loved ones as they experience the physical and mental process of dying, undergo a profound transformative experience.

Margaretha Anne Haughwout's interactive installation, the birds, the bees, the flowers and the seeds investigates desiring bodies and their energetic contribution to war and organized violence. It uses the allegory of the flower garden to examine the interconnectedness between the forces of western bodies, and how their energies feed war.

Will Justice presents The Human Morality Index (HMI), a website that purports itself as a pseudo-scientific, real-time barometer of human moral capital. Intended as a satirical network that jibes at neoliberal economic theories and global fiscal Westernization, the HMI maps stock and statistical data into a framework loosely based upon the seven deadly sins and the heavenly virtues.

Naomi Lucille Kagaya's Furusato (Home) presents an interactive sonic installation that explores personal origins. Through the creation of an aural "environment" Furusato inspires guests to question themselves and re-think their own definitions of home.

Fabricio "Breeze" Olsson presents documentation of his project entitled Eco-Mod, MoCap, which is on view in Santa Cruz. Eco-Mod, MoCap is a 3D interactive installation in which participants, through physical movement, cooperate to modify a projected kinetic image of the local environment of Santa Cruz County.

Andrés Rojas explores the impact that Internet technologies have on journalism, in his presentation entitled Palimpsest. By examining CNN.com's reporting strategies, the project reveals disturbing trends that have the potential to significantly affect the average citizen who may be relying on this source for actionable information.

Brendan Salmond's Points of Interest (POI) project has been realized to provide a user with a unique experience of their own personal urban surroundings. In an attempt to subvert the dominant structures of consumer grade GPS applications, the POI system privileges exploration over routing efficiency, and critical interrogation of an urban setting over the location of proximal sites of consumption.

Marc Sciglimpaglia presents documentation on the design and implementation of Reflux, an aggressively interdisciplinary project that fuses live musical performance and classic video game mechanics into a single, symbiotic entity. Reflux explores the potential for fluid, realtime interfaces between music and game that presuppose neither as primary.

Michael Treanor's Reflect is an interactive game in which the player sees through the eyes of other creatures. This often-meditative experience incorporates challenges in the form of "observation puzzles" that encourage the player to imagine, contemplate and achieve a state of tranquil engagement. Available at www.reflect-game.com to play.